EVERY now and then you might not be too horrified to find a tiny fly or strand of hair in your fresh food.

Grim as it may sound, miniscule living organisms and human tissue do occasionally find their way into the food chain and although unpleasant, they are unlikely to cause any harm.

Increasingly these days, in fact, we are warned of the dangers of becoming over-clean.

A sterile environment, the experts say now, may only yield problems with asthma and allergies and we would do well to allow a little more of the natural world into our lives.

But after the grotesque discovery made by Yate couple James and Jasmine Watson of a whole dead bird in their Tesco salad this week, most of us will no doubt want to inspect every morsel of food more than ever.

The very idea that an entire animal could somehow end up on a supermarket shelf, and worse in our fridge, is nothing short of incredible.

How a whole bird even got into a bag of salad, let alone went undetected through Tesco’s many procedures from the packing plant stage to being delivered to the couple’s home, is almost unbelievable.

Given the current horsemeat scandal, you would like to think all retailers, especially those which have had horse DNA found in their products (Tesco included), would be taking extra care to ensure every single item on their shelves is up to standard.